The person who made the video for the C64 version typed
LOAD"FLAPPY BIRD",8
rather than
LOAD"FLAPPY BIRD",8,1
which is what I remember using on my C64. Apparently it’s to do with which byte of RAM to load it into.
Normally I would ask for an Amstrad CPC version, but it would in his case be exactly the same as the c64 version, just with brighter colors and jerky scrolling.
C64 programs went both ways, generally bigger and more professional programs used the extra ,1 because it gave them a little more RAM I think. Typically you didn’t have to type RUN to start them either.
This shouldn’t really be all that impressive. This is exactly the sort of thing the C64 was good at. It’s also one of the few games where the single button on the joystick wouldn’t be an issue. 
The C64 always inhabited a world somewhere between a full on computer and a game console.
If I recall correctly, the C64 joysticks were compatible with the Atari 2600 as well. I also remember the graphics being quite good. The best-looking games were up there with the NES.
Yep, same joystick port. Interestingly enough, the Sega Master system used the same connector. It was on the way to being a de-facto standard until Nintendo came along.
The C64 has a built-in sprite generator and a pretty decent bit blitter for its era, as well as a rather nice sound generator with the SID chip. You could do a lot with it. The big downside was the SLOOOOW disk drive. Theoretically the system supported cartridges too, but almost nobody used them.
Hmm, according to the Wiki, the C64 carts could be mapped to either 8kb or 16kb at a time. This compares alright with the NES’s 32kb carts (before MMUs are factored in), especially since the C64 has 16x as much main memory as a NES (64kb vs. 2kb working RAM and 2kb video RAM in the NES). I don’t know for certain, but have to assume that the C64 carts can do bank switching just as well as the NES carts. Some of the biggest NES carts ended up being 1024kb(!!).
A post where “8-bit” would have actually been appropriate in the title!
“Assuming you don’t have a C64 or an emulator set up”
That’s the most offensive thing I’ve heard all week.
The ,8 refers to the device number of the first floppy drive. Programs loaded that way would load into the BASIC workspace.
Adding ,1 to the end of that would load the file starting at the address indicated by the first bytes of the file. Many game companies would use that to load the file over the top of the command interpreter so the program would start automatically. That was an attempt to make it easier to play a game but also to deter software copying.
I remember Atari 2600 joysticks working on C64. I didn’t know they could go the other way too. So, one could use an Epyx(sp?) joystick on an Atari 2600?
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